Snapshot Saturday: Structured elegance – unstructured lodgings

Neptune.

Sheltering in the Temple of Piety

The columns of the Temple of Piety

A more distant view. The rain’s stopped now.

Neptune and his reflection.

I was at Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal. And it was raining. I stood beneath the shelter of the Temple of Piety, and enjoyed the gracious structured elegance of the Water Gardens. Centre stage was Neptune, Roman god of the waters, and of the Moon Ponds over which he presides.

And then I noticed that amid this ordered beauty, a coot family had built a ramshackle and highly unstructured nest. I think the gardens’ creators, John and William Aislabie would have enjoyed the water birds’ cheeky appropriation of this most peaceful of scenes.